


Fighting on my own, to the sound of an enemy's song

by emmisaysmufasa



Category: Under The Dome (TV)
Genre: AU, Other, SO, Stephen King - Freeform, The Dark Tower - Freeform, Under The Dome - Freeform, because stephen king is in it, because that lowkey inspired it, i always wonder what happened to his "character" in the show, julia is the best, kinda a mix of the show and book, kinda like the gunslinger, made this theory, not a theory but like, what i think would be cool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 01:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8267197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmisaysmufasa/pseuds/emmisaysmufasa
Summary: An Under the Dome au where Julia is basically just awesome and does tons of investigating idk





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> not my characters, not getting paid. Julia is bae. Title is from Paramore- Part II

"Julia!"  
The voice comes from nowhere. Julia lies awake in bed, heart pounding the way it did when she didn't know what to do. She wasn't scared of much, but Not Knowing scared her.   
She strained her ears to hear it again, but the night around her stayed silent, except for Barbie's breathing next to her.   
Now that she's awake, there's no way she'll fall asleep again, so she gets up and goes into the living room. She contemplates making coffee, then wonders what will happen when the coffee runs out, decides to get a glass of water instead. She watches out the window, never getting used to the fact that while it looks normal out there, she's trapped. Possibly for good. She shakes her head at the unwelcome thought. The dome was here to protect them. It must come down, eventually.   
She moves over to the bookshelf, fingers tapping along the spines of her well-read books. She pulls one out, looking at the cover. It's some old crime\romance novel, and while she can't remember it at all, she supposes it must be better than nothing, so she settles into the couch and opens the book.   
She gets lost in the story faster than she expected to, maybe because it was a different world. A world without the dome.   
By the time Barbie gets up, she's halfway through, and not planning on stopping. Not until Barbie taps her lightly and reminds her about their trip to the Chester's Mill town library. They'd promised Joe they'd meet him there, to talk about some new theory. Julia doubted it would have any substance, but Barbie had nodded, seriously. Like he trusted the kid. With his life- with all their lives. And Julia decided that if they were to leave their lives in any kid's hands, Joe would be the best.   
"We going?" Julia frowns, noticing Barbie's eyes lingering on the photo of her and Peter.   
"Yeah. Yeah. Sorry." 

The library doesn't seem to have been in much use since dome day, and Barbie insists on leading the way in, just in case. Julia lets him, but feels a little irritated- does he not think she's strong enough to fight someone off? Does he still think she needs saving?   
Norrie and Joe are seated in beanbag chairs, and Joe seems to be tapping away at a laptop while Norrie flicks through an old magazine.   
"Joe. Norrie."   
Joe looks up, and his grin is blinding.   
"Hey! Barbie! You made it!"  
They've known Joe for two weeks now, and he still looks at Barbie like he's his hero.   
"Sure did. What've you got?" he asks, settling into a desk chair, propping his feet up on a pile of discarded books.  
"So, I think if I can crack through whatever's blocking the wifi, I can get a message out to-" Joe's voice becomes background noise to Julia. They've tried that. Not possible. She wanders towards the fiction section, hoping to find the sequel to the crime romance novel. But what she finds is much more interesting.   
"Barbie." Her voice comes out suddenly, and she'd feel bad for yelling if it wasn't so important. "Come take a look at this."  
Barbie comes rushing over, as he usually does when Julia's involved, and frowns. "What is it?"  
"Look at these books."  
"Oh my god, Julia, we don't have-"  
"Barbie. Look."  
Sighing, Barbie crouches down, and looks halfheartedly, but Julia can tell when he sees it.   
His eyes widen, and eyebrows furrow, and he leans in closer, pulls out the book in question.  
"Oh my god. Julia. Is this-"  
"I don't know. I don't know if it's a coincidence, if it isn't- maybe the dome's trying to tell us someth-"  
"Julia." Barbie's voice is different now. Confused. "Julia. I- I think this book is about us."


	2. Chapter 2

"Oh my god. Barbie. Who- who wrote this?"  
"Stephen.. King. Heard of him?"  
Julia shakes her head.   
"Me neither. Maybe we should-"  
"Barbie. Oh my god. Barbie. Look."  
She's pointing at the author photo. There's a man, who looks to be on the slightly older side of life, with glasses. Barbie has never seen him before in his life.  
"Barbie. I- I know this guy."

It takes Julia a while to calm down and explain that she had seen a man, who looked exactly like that, in the Diner, and then it takes Barbie a while to wrap his head around it all. There's a book. About them. With their names, everything that's going on- and the author has a lookalike under the dome?   
"Maybe it says the way to get out," Julia says, going to open it, but Barbie shakes his head.   
"That thing's a brick. We're better off finding this Stephen guy and asking him what's going on."  
"Barbie are you sure-"   
"Yeah, Julia, I'm sure."  
Joe appears. "Hey, what's going on?"  
Julia looks at Barbie, who looks at Joe, who looks confused.   
"You explain it on the way," Julia instructs him. "We're gonna find this guy."


	3. Chapter 3

It's harder to find him than Julia anticipated, and Norrie keeps asking questions about every possible thing she can.   
"Jesus, this guy has a foul mouth," Joe remarks, holding the book open and showing Norrie a page.  
Norrie rolls her eyes. "Joe, we're not in the 6th grade. Grow up."  
The diner is the final place they check, and it turns out to be just the right place- that is, if you want to find anyone except Stephen King. Half the town is in there, but no Stephen.   
"We could check the houses," Joe says.  
"Yeah, and do what? Strip-search every room?" Norrie asks.  
"Or you could just ask me."  
They turn around and gasp.


	4. Chapter 4

Stephen King stands before Julia, Barbie, Norrie and Joe.   
"Who are you?" Julia demands. "What's going on?"  
Stephen sighs. "Come to my house. I'll explain."

Stephen's house is dingy and terribly lit, not the kind of place Julia would expect an apparently bestselling author to live. She tells him this, and he says, "That's part of the story. Sit down."  
When everyone is seated, Stephen sits back and gazes at them all.   
"It's brilliant," he murmurs, and Norrie frowns.   
"What's brilliant?" she snaps.  
"Watch your tone, my dear," Stephen smiles. "After all, I did create you."


	5. Chapter 5

The next few hours are the strangest of Julia's life.   
Stephen explains that he is an author, a rather successful one at that, and, in writing Under the Dome, he had gotten stuck in the story. Literally.   
"This is an alternate world. Not fake, exactly, but not real, either. Though, truly, what world is real?" he ponders. Barbie rolls his eyes.   
"How do we know this is true?"  
Stephen stares him down, then stands up.   
"You're Dale Barbara. Went to war. Lost some of yourself in the process."  
"Anyone could know that."  
"Could anyone know about the gym?"  
Barbie stills, and Julia looks over, frowns. "What is he talking about?"  
"It doesn't matter," Barbie mumbles, but his eyes tell a different story.  
"You try and live every day of your life better than the last, hoping it'll wash it away, but it never does. Does it, Dale?"  
Barbie stays silent.  
"You're stuck. Not in the way I'm stuck, but deeper. It's the kind of stuck you can't get out of. And I know this. Because I wrote that scene."  
Julia buries her head in her hands. "What do we do."  
"You haven't read the book?" Stephen asks.  
"Would we be here if we had?" Norrie snaps.   
Stephen smiles. "Ah, yes. Snappy Norrie. And Scarecrow Joe."  
"What?" Joe's head snaps up. "No one calls me that anymore."  
"It's so... fulfilling, in a way. To see my works, standing in front of me. To be able to conversate. I suppose that all goes back to the time I-"  
"Jesus, you love to get wordy," Norrie interrupts.   
"Oh my god!"   
Joe is pale, staring at the book.   
"What is it?" Julia asks.   
Stephen sighs. "Oh. Yes. I should have mentioned this earlier."  
"Mentioned what?"  
"Well, you see. In my book- in this story, uh. Almost everyone dies."


	6. Chapter 6

"EVERYONE DIES?" Norrie cries out, her eyes going wide in rage. "You sit here, fantasize about how beautiful it is to see us for real, and you neglect to tell us that YOU KILLED US OFF?"  
"Wait, no. Not you guys. Just. Most of the town."  
"How many survivors?" Barbie asks.   
"Dale-"  
"How. Many. Survivors."  
Joe looks up from the book, mouth in a silent "oh". "Twenty six."

After another hour of Norrie screaming swear words that almost put Stephen King himself to shame, everyone calmed down.   
"I suppose you could always change the ending," Stephen says. "it wouldn't change the published book. Just this reality."  
Julia looks at Barbie.   
"What do we have to do?"


	7. Chapter 7

Stephen explains the plan, and adds that if he goes with them when the dome lifts, he'll return to his Normal World. That sounds good to Norrie, who has quickly decided she doesn't like her creator one bit.   
"We're more than this," Barbie whispers into Julia's hair that night in bed.   
"Mmm?"  
"We're not just Stephen's characters. We're real. We've become real."  
Julia turns over and caresses Barbie's cheek. "Or maybe we were always real."


	8. Chapter 8

Julia gets to the box, and talks to the aliens. Still unbelieving that this is real, that any of this is real- that they'll be free, so soon.   
Barbie stays back and bonds with Stephen King, whom he actually gets along with well, and offers to give him his email address, until Stephen reminds him that they live in different realities.   
Maybe all life is imaginary on some level, and some realities just have different levels of real-ness.  
And then.   
Then the dome is up, and Barbie runs, and he turns to Stephen, but he's fading away.   
And then Julia runs to him, burying her face in his neck, him holding her tight, ready to start a new life.

THE END


	9. epilogue

Three weeks later, Barbie gets a call.   
"Hey, Joe."  
"Hey. So you know how Stephen's books don't exist in this universe or whatever, and only under the dome and in Stephen's own universe?"  
"Sure."  
"Well I kept the copy from the dome and I just finished it. And hey, guess what?"  
"What."  
"Haha, haha. You and Julia DO ITTT!!"  
Barbie shakes his head, but makes a mental note to borrow the copy sometime. "Later, Joe." He hangs up.  
THE (REAL) END


End file.
